It can be tempting to view web standards only in terms of the initial development process – and it’s this perspective that can lead to the belief that strict adherence to standards is more time-consuming than conventional methods. In a lot of cases this can be true – it’s often much quicker to hack a page together any-old-how than to worry about dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s. However, it’s necessary to take a long-term view to see how such development practices can wind up costing more, if not costing the entire project.

Keith highlights some of the real-world problems he has encountered on his projects and concludes that web standards are not only his bag, baby, but should be yours too. And who’s to argue with a conclusion like that?